Suggestion: Savage Blade Cleave

[Link594]

So, would it be broken or balanced if Savage Blade had a combo bonus that made it strikes everything in front of you? The animation is such a wide horizontal swing that it kinda doesn't make sense how I'm hitting only the enemy in between two other ones. Obviously this cleave would only effect melee range, and wouldn't be like warrior's overpower.

I for one would enjoy some aoe that would help for solo purposes and help noobies have an easier time tanking at lower levels. It kinda blows that Circle of Scorn has a pretty lengthy cooldown for being our only aoe ability, not including Flash which does no damage. I feel like the world wouldn't crumble if Paladin had some extra dps to make it feel like I'm contributing a bit more then just holding enemies' attention.

Even with a savage blade that hit multiple targets, I find it hard to believe we can beat or even come close to a Black Mage on aoe dps. Your thoughts?

EDIT: Just some edits to reflect on some concerns you guys have mentioned.

So new Savage Blade could be something with a combo potency of 170 on the target and a potency of 50 on 2 additional targets for a combined total of 270 potency.

Rage of Halone and Royal Authority can be increased by 30 to make up for Savage Blade losing 30 potency on the main target. So all in all, the dps is the same with one target, you just have some added cleave to match with the animation and have some increased aoe dps.

I don't think it would be beneficial to cut out the 3rd ability to aoe quicker as you'd be losing out on DPS as Rage of Halone and Royal Authority would have more potency then Savage Blade regardless.

I do think it would be nice if all horizontal cleave looking animations hit multiple targets, but for the simplicity of the thread I just wanna keep it to Paladins and AoE dps.

[Dotsusama]

You said it wouldn't be like Overpower, but what you are describing is exactly like Overpower, without one of that skill's weaknesses: it would not interrupt your enmity combo.

Flash's enmity generation is not insignificant, does not cost TP, does not interrupt your combo, and does not require enemies to be in a cone before you. It also blinds enemies which, if they aren't already immune and you're tanking a lot of them, is handy for mitigation.

I don't see why you would need a cleave component.

[Synestra]

I don't see why you would need a cleave component.

For added AoE dps that PLD's currently lack royally.

[Link594]

You said it wouldn't be like Overpower, but what you are describing is exactly like Overpower, without one of that skill's weaknesses: it would not interrupt your enmity combo.

Flash's enmity generation is not insignificant, does not cost TP, does not interrupt your combo, and does not require enemies to be in a cone before you. It also blinds enemies which, if they aren't already immune and you're tanking a lot of them, is handy for mitigation.

I don't see why you would need a cleave component.

Well, Overpower has 120 potency and its spammable. It also has a range that extends beyond melee. This cleave would be locked behind a combo, so it would be 200 potency every 7.5 sec (2.5 for first). Sure overpower costs TP, but it would also do more damage if you spammed it.

I understand Flash does great aoe emnity, but it doesnt do any damage and its useless for solo play. The reason for this suggestion isnt to improve aoe threat but aoe dps.

[Shurrikhan]

As far as PLD needing AoE, I agree completely. Preferably, in a unique manner, like so. But I don't think it should be tied to a single ability. The only thing that might be interesting, or else painfully restricting, about this would be the option to drop the 3rd combo tier (Halone/Royal) in order to cleave again sooner. In either case you'd only be doing 100(n-1)+175 potency per GCD and essentially spending 130 TP per AoE, which certainly isn't overpowered in itself.

But if we're talking about animations seeming to cleaves, I have to ask, have you seen Scourge? Or Storm's Eye? Or Aeolian Edge? How are they not hitting just about everything around me? Most slashing abilities will appear to be cleaves, because, honestly, they are; if they 'slash' horizontally... they cleave. On that note, I'd love it if many a deceptively single-target ability in this game actually cleaved, and the true AoEs, in turn, were a bit less niched, but that's a big change, which I sadly doubt development would get behind.

[Link594]

You bring up very strong points, especially as the amount of mobs increase, its more beneficial to just cut the 3rd combo to just cleave sooner and I don't think that would be a good design. The only way to really address this issue is to just decrease the potency of the ability and have it do 50% damage to cleaved adds. Even then, having an aoe (especially since we lack them) tied to a 2nd combo might be too strong.

On the animation issue, yeah I understand other classes have cleave looking abilities, but asking for them all to be turned into aoe might be too much to ask at one time. While I do think its a big change, I don't think it can happen at once and its more likely to start off with a class that extremely lacks aoe and expand to other classes if it works out well. I doubt development will get behind it as they seem to be very restrictive when it comes to aoe, but having abilities that seem to cleave and don't is a huge bummer.

[Link594]

Riot Blade suffers the same issue, as you could technically cut Goring out to regenerate MP quicker, but I don't think the same applies as the drawback in not finishing the combo vs more MP is not as obvious.

I think maybe limiting the cleave to 2 additional targets and having it do 50 potency on cleaved adds while the original target be 175 potency might be enough to not warrent dropping the 3rd combo on aoe, but then Savage Blade is weaker on single target. Maybe you could raise the potency of Halone by 25 to compensate. I'm not sure how big of an impact this would have at lower levels though. I don't think missing 25 potency on Savage Blade would make it impossible for lower levels to tank though.

[Sapphidia]

I think my favorite suggestion I've seen is to Reintroduce 1.0's War Drum, which would function like a cross between Overpower and the old pre-3.1 Shield Swipe.

That is, War Drum would be an ability on the GCD, costing quite a bit of TP (probably 120 or so) which can only be used after a block. It would be a 100-150 Potency attack in a cone, with a 2-3x threat modifier. You'd only be able to use it tanking of course as it needs a Block to trigger it, but this would then further buff the use of Sheltron and Bulwark as DPS cooldowns. Your group AOE tanking would then be Flash and Circle of Scorn purely to grab initial hate once, and could then likely tank entire packs solely using War Drum as AOE threat in between goring blade cycling.

It's not really relevant to the thread, but if I was the dev responsible for Paladins I'd do the following balance changes:

- Shield Oath becomes available at level 30
- Sword Oath is -removed-
- Awareness has a baseline 20 second duration and the passive duration extension Trait is removed.
- The old awareness Trait becomes a Passive Sword Oath trait granting 50 potency auto attack procs permanently for the paladin even when in Shield Oath
- The Level 40 Paladin skill now becomes War Drum

These changes in my mind would fix pretty much ALL of a paladin's issues (bar maybe clemency being meh) - they'd gain Sword Oath procs in Shield Oath to increase their damage in tank stance without changing their damage when OUT of tank stance. They'd be able to drop Shield Oath to DPS without needing to interrupt combos turning Sword Oath on. They'd get their tank stance at 30 like the other tanks so Brayflox and Qarn arent horrendous to tank for new players. And they'd get an AOE ability that focuses on their ability to block. It would also be a small buff to Awareness as a Cross Class skill as its new 20 second base duration would perfectly match Raw Intuition and Dark Dance.

[Launched]

For added AoE dps that PLD's currently lack royally.

But why does PLD need aoe dps? It got through 2.x just fine without it, and many people even claimed it was a better choice for big pulls because of block, blind and Hallowed. Even now in 3.x it was the best choice for A2S MT, and it gained a decent amount of trash damage by being able to rotate Goring Blade under Fight of Flight. Tanks don't need to have all the same aoe potential.

[Link594]

But why does PLD need aoe dps? It got through 2.x just fine without it, and many people even claimed it was a better choice for big pulls because of block, blind and Hallowed. Even now in 3.x it was the best choice for A2S MT, and it gained a decent amount of trash damage by being able to rotate Goring Blade under Fight of Flight. Tanks don\\\\'t need to have all the same aoe potential.

Because the Paladin isn't always in a group to have people kill things for him. I don't see why you would be against Paladin having some sort of cleave. If Flash did some minor damage I can understand, but it doesn't contribute damage to the enemy and it certainly won't help you if you're alone. Even if Flash did minor damage, I wouldn't want to spam an ability, I'd rather rotate a combo and push different buttons. Savage Blade even looks like a cleave and I think it would make tanking much more fun knowing you're slicing a couple enemies with one swing.